Pato Bosich (b.1978) has an enchanting new exhibition of drawings created in dialogue with the British Museum’s collection of classical antiquity art. Working both on-site in the museum and back in his studio for more than 5 years, he has been responding to the British Museum’s antiquities, including Mesoamerican, Mesopotamian and Greek art. Using wine, combined with pencil and ink, he acknowledges the iconography and materiality of the antiquities, including their fragmentation over time in this striking new series. The exhibition, with all works for sale, will run from 10 – 26 October at the University of London, Senate House, with a Private View on 9 October, 6pm - 8.30pm.

Why wine?

Pato Bosich’s use of the unconventional combination of ink with wine has uncanny parallels with a poem by the 13th century mystic Abraham Abulafia. Often cited by the artist, ‘The battle of blood and ink’ is about perceiving our soul as blood and our spirit as ink. He explains that understanding the battle that rages between them is our key to self-knowledge.

Metamorphoses & time travel

In many ancient cultures, the supernatural and the fantastic are accessed through the qualities of the animal, and a recurrent theme in this exhibition is the metamorphoses of both animal and human, in particular the female form. You can see this in strong and celebratory works such as ‘The Goddess Sekmeth’.

Ancient art also has an evocative presence that is never merely visual and as a result the artist’s multi -sensory response to the antiquities give a tactile quality to his drawings. Symbols are embodied to play and multiply with each other and new forms are reconfigured as the artist navigates these ancient époques and arrives at the present. His drawings thus represent a form of artistic ‘time-travel’, a fusion of past, present, and future into a cohesive whole.

University of London

The Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS) of the University of London has invited this London-based Chilean artist to present this most recent body of works on paper at their Senate House project space adjacent to the British Museum. The exhibition opens an extraordinary dialogue between this contemporary artist’s Latin American cultural sensibility and the British Museum’s antiquities collection viewed through a Eurocentric prism.

Want to attend the PV?

It will take place on 9 October, 6.00 – 8.00pm at University of London, Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS), Senate House, south block, Second Floor, Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HU

You can either RSVP here or you can contact Claire McCaslin-Brown by telephone +44 (0) 203 151 8810 or by email claire@mccaslinartadvisory.com.

Can’t make the PV? The exhibition will continue from 10 – 26 October. Opening times: Monday – Saturday, 9.00am – 6.00pm. Artist tours will take place every Friday.

Artist in conversation

On 23 October, 6.30 pm at University of London, ILAS Pato Bosich will be in conversation with independent curator James Putnam and Dr. Irving Finkel, curator of the British Museum’s collection of Mesopotamian antiquities. You will need to RSVP via the website/Claire McCaslin-Brown here.

About the artist

Pato Bosich (b. 1978, Chile) lives and works in London. He has exhibited widely, including at the Courtauld Institute Biennale in London, MSSA museum in Santiago, MAM museum in Chiloé, Sberbank University in Moscow, Porter Contemporary in New York, Jano Arts and Fundació Catalunya América in Barcelona and Pasaje 865 in Buenos Aires. For more information on the artist Pato Bosich please visit his website here.